I keep the glass vase with the roses, cut short, filled with fresh water.
They are dying and I know it, but I still find value in what they give me.
There are petals fraying brown at the corners, others ready to fall at the least movement.
I keep wanting more…from the flowers, the sun, this life.

Never satisfied, I see now, I look inside.
Another dog, another home, another someone.
Every day, at some point; well almost every day, deep lonely. And you know what? It can all change, like that (snaps fingers). This is how I know/am reminded the fleetingness and unpredictability of any emotion.

Well then, what about love, how do I trust the most complicated of emotions or is it the clearest and easiest and only the mind that creates the chaos? I mean look, winds come, from the north, northwest, not as much from the south, but what I’m getting at is, at some point, the wind dies down and things get calm. There’s quiet and repose. When we love, we love for everyone. Do you see? The poet says, “Any person who loves another person, wherever in the world, is with us in this room”-…*

When the Buddha first awakened he said, “I, together with the whole earth, and all living beings attain the way at the same time.” Such generosity! I don’t carry this depth of kindness, but I know I have the capacity. I have been given so much and I forget so often.
I begin again.

3 Responses to I Keep the Glass Vase With the Roses

interesting thought in this… for me love was never an easy emotion even though i think the confusion around it is def. man-made.. from its origin it is pure and simple… i wish we could find back to that

Refusing to let go. Seeing the brown edges, the fragility, seeing it all, and stepping forward anyway. It would be so easy to stop, sit down, go to bed. But we don’t in this poem. We see the decay, but more importantly, what still remains.